Attendees of UN IPCC climate parties conferences will be reassured to know that delicious Rock Lobsters are showing surprising resilience to the impact of climate change. But ongoing studies are required.

The southern rock lobster is showing resistance to the effects of climate change, Tasmanian researchers have found, but warn that does not mean the species is immune to future environmental perils.

The study, which reported on findings taken over a 25-year period, investigated the environmental aspects that influence the species’ settlement across a range of Australian locations, and found the fishery as a whole is showing broad resilience to changing ocean currents, water temperatures, swell and wind patterns.

The research compared monthly records of the number of juvenile lobsters surviving in the open ocean and returning to shore.

Temporal and spatial trends in settlement of the southern rock lobster, Jasus edwardsii, were examined to identify the influence of environmental variables over different spatial scales. Settlement data were collected from 1994 to 2011 along the Southern Australian and New Zealand coasts. We identified common settlement trends at a regional scale (100–500 km): the magnitude of settlement at sites from South Australia (SA) and Victoria (VIC) were similar, but different to sites in Tasmania (TAS). In New Zealand, three spatial regions were identified: northern (NNZ), middle (MNZ) and southern regions (SNZ). Higher settlement in SA, VIC and MNZ occurred in years with higher rainfall and storms in spring and El Niño conditions. In TAS and SNZ, higher settlement occurred during La Niña conditions. These results suggest that settlement over regional scales is modulated by oceanic processes, but outcomes vary between regions. At a local scale, a higher wave period and wind relaxation were relatively more important than the sea surface temperature (SST) in SA and VIC. In TAS, the current velocity also influenced the strength of settlement. However, much of the local settlement variability was not explained by the models suggesting that settlement in J. edwardsii is a complex process where larval behaviour, biological factors and oceanographic processes interact over different scales. The apparently complex processes affecting settlement showed that environmental conditions that reduced settlement strength in one region of the fishery often increased settlement strength in other regions. This could provide resilience to climate change at the stock level.

No doubt climate researchers will continue to conduct long term sampling studies of the rock lobster population, to ensure this important resource receives the maximum possible protection from the ravages of over-exploitation and climate change.

Rick I never ever saw a three pound crayfish when I was a kid. They used to let them grow to be adults before harvesting then, so one crayfish was a seafood meal for the whole family. I would think 5 to 8 pounds was more the going size.

Nowadays you see four ounce lobster tails in the stores. Glorified prawns is what those are.

Let’s take the common lobster, Homarus vulgarus, and the spiney (or rock) lobster, Panulurus spp., of the US SE coast. They share two ranges with a small overlap (boundary with competition) around Cape Hatteras, common lobster in the north and spiney in the south.

Now, the sea temperatures along the East Coast have a ~60 year cycle that the lobstermen in New England have known about for many generations. Common lobsters are relatively scarce during the temperature peaks and valleys and most common in the intermediate temperatures—makes sense to adapt to the most common temperature range if you cannot specialize in the whole thing. So, we can actually track this sea temperature cycle by watching the lobstering (or fishing) effort, as fishing effort goes up when lobsters are scarce and down when they are abundant.

Another way of following this cycle is to watch the boundary between the common and spiney lobsters as it moves north and then south as the temperatures go up and down, respectively.

Rock lobsters, even in Australia, see a wide temperature range as well as seasonal changes over their regional distribution. They are more robust than these biologists realize.

There are three main factors that lobsters need to live (based on studies of Homarus v.), needing proper salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen. Now, each of these factors has a viable range and lobster physiology has a limit (metabolic power). If two of these factors are relatively constant, then the lobster is more robust (tolerant at the extremes of the third factor’s range. However, it two of these factors are already near the limits of a lobster’s tolerance ranges, a slight change in the third can be fatal. This is why lobsters to not do all that well in estuaries, but thrive just outside where the conditions are not as wanton and changing.

In Long Island Sound, years, ago, one summer, the water was warm and the oxygen was low. There was then a huge rainstorm that dumped huge quantities of fresh water into the sound. The organic load of the rain runoff kept the oxygen low and the decreased salinity proved lethal. Many nearshore lobsters died.

I am sure that all lobsters endured a large amount of climate change over the span of their evolution. Most recently they have survived the ice ages and interglacial periods warmer than this one. The biggest threat to their existance is not climate change but rather being caught and eaten.

The term ‘settlement’ was unfamiliar to me in the context of critters. I assume it’s unfamiliar to many others, so here’s a brief precis.

Some marine critters don’t move around much as adults. When they’re young, they need a way to move into new territory. That’s called dispersal. When they find the place where they’re going to spend the rest of their lives, that’s called settlement. link

Different fields, even different specializations in the same field, use words differently. example It’s always wise to check. I don’t know about other languages, but English has lots of words with self-contradictory meanings. link

Yes indeed gnome and you won’t find those parasites catching their own. They will be caught in a pot from a diesel powered fishing vessel, transported ashore, shored in a coal fired power station powered cool room, flown overseas in some dirty great jumbo air freighter and cooked in either an electric or gas fired cooker. Oh so eco friendly.

IPCC conference attendeees should be fed the foods and drink they advocate to “save the planet” from catastrophic climate change. The warmist should be fed bugs,worms and artificially produced proteins accompanied by a fine recycled urine beverage. Watch attendance and advocacy plunge.

This is a study I could get into. Got to love it when you can eat your data with a bit of drawn butter. It’s a bit amazing how long the FL. spiny was ignored. Now every hole in the bay is marked on someone’s GPS and you can walk across the water boat to boat.

Alert! Alert! That lobster looks all red like he has been cooked. It must be a sign that the heat is hiding in the ocean. We must get some “climate scientists” down there quickly. We can give them thermometers and concrete shoes to check this out.

“However, much of the local settlement variability was not explained by the models suggesting that settlement in J. edwardsii is a complex process where larval behaviour, biological factors and oceanographic processes interact over different scales”.

“ However, the processes determining the variability in larval settlement are complex and include biotic processes, such as ecological interactions that determine the size of the larval pool and larval behaviour, as well as abiotic factors, such as physical transport mechanisms”

The question of why most marine oviparous species produce such exponentially large numbers of larvae seems to have found a home in models such as these with elaborate modern software analyses. Statements as above predate these and the with ones below are long repetitive (or is it redundant). It has been long suspected that such resiliency, as concluded, is the (necessary) result of such numbers.

“ The GLS models including the climate-ocean forcing indexes explained 38% to 79% of the variability in settlement trends (Table 1).”

“ In summary, the factors determining the settlement of pueruli in J. edwardsii are clearly part of a complex process, and it is apparent from the results of the present study that oceanographic processes interact at different scales and the effect varies between regions.”

Those of us who have been reading this in papers for lots of decades would like to see some specific problem solving approaches. There are hints in this paper and others of old. I guess it is better to say that something is complex than that you do not understand it.

Attempts to link larval bay immigration with 3 to 10 day periods was unsuccessful, but most of these studies, admittedly inadequate, suspect that much happens in between sampling periods. (Paraphrased and summarized from a three decade old thesis).

A species at least 140 million years old shows the ability to adapt to changing conditions including whatever offed the dinosaurs recently. Shock, suprise. Conclusion: more study is needed. And butter.

These people make the stupid assumption that global warming is always harmful, when in fact, warmer temps mean more plant growth, the basis for all food for all animals. It should be obvious to anyone with an operational brain that lobsters have survived extreme climate changes over the lifespan of the species, and there is small likelihood that a few degrees higher temps will wipe them out, or even reduce their numbers.

“The apparently complex processes affecting settlement showed that environmental conditions that reduced settlement strength in one region of the fishery often increased settlement strength in other regions.”

Doesn’t this mean that you studied the wrong “environmental conditions”? Correlation isn’t causation, but no correlation at all means you’re just wrong.

Don’t underestimate the rock lobster. Many years ago while working on a harbor deepening project in Port Phillip Bay Australia we were required to place two 50 pound packs of high explosive to knock down pinnacles. On one occasion I noticed a rock lobster some six metres from the site. The shot was fired and on returning the next day to survey the site there was the rock lobster alive and well. Of course having no air cavities helped

Well, 10 000 or so years ago there were kangaroos bouncing around the rocks and gullies where the the Rock Lobster’s live today…. I’m pretty sure that a 100 parts per million rise in an atmospheric trace gas and a 0.7 degree Celsius rise in temperature over the last 100 years is NOT going to worry the Rock Lobsters one freaking bit. I’m pretty sure they’re fairly resilient to change…. ;)

Amazingly if one reduces predation on a marine species you often end up with more of them, at least for a while. Most if not all marine organism have evolved highly resilient life styles. In fact resiliency seems to be a common trait among marine fish and crustaceans. Why? because throughout their history they have had to adapt to both subtle and dramatic changes in “ocean climate.”